in the wild says Santa Fe New Mexican, AP 9/24. The state maintains that the water is "owned" by Albuquerque, Santa Fe and various irrigation districts and needed as a "reserve" in case the region's drought continues next year, even though the Bush administration has refused to consider reducing water deliveries to agricultural users as a conservation measure. Conservationists maintain that "water use throughout New Mexico is unsustainable" and that it is the "health of the entire Rio Grande ecosystem" that is at stake -Greenlines

No fishing zones will be implemented around the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara in January 2003 in order to preserve the diversity of sea life there.

Protection sought for green sturgeon. Conservationists are asking the courts to force the NMFS to make a decision on extending ESA protection for green sturgeon, an ancient fish that spawns in the Klamath River.  Whistleblowers accused the Bush administration of pressuring NMFS to give priority for water allocation to irrigation despite a survey that showed recreational. use produces more revenue.  According to the Oregon Natural Resources Council, the "Klamath Basin irrigators do not want to see this fish listed because it requires big deep rivers."

Canada subsidizes seal hunt.  Falsely blaming seals for the decline in cod due to its own mismanagement and to provide fishermen with a new source of income, the Canadian government began  paying sealers 20 cents a pound for killing seals in 1995.  Thanks to this incentive, the seal kill escalated from 65,400 in 1995 to as high as 275,000 seals brutally clubbed to death. every year.  So far the kill has cost  $20.5 million.  Contact: Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario K1A OA6 Canada.  See CivAb p.6 for help from unexpected source (Viagra).

Condors biting the bullet: In the latest set back to the California condor recovery program, routine tests on 9 of the 17 wild condors living in Los Padres National Forest revealed that 8 of the birds had been exposed to lead says the San Jose Mercury News 11/5. One condor had such high blood levels of lead that it is being confined until it recovers.  This is the first time since the 1997 reintroduction began that such high levels have been detected. Conservationists suspect the lead poisoning is tied to ingestion of lead bullets in the recent hunting season, renewing "concerns about what some see as the largest threat to California's $35 million program to bring condors back from the brink of extinction. -Greenlines

Washington bans genetically engineered fish, the first state to do so.  Wild fish are endangered because they are at a disadvantage in competing with super-sized genetically engineered specimens.

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